


Red is the Rose

by SegaBarrett



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: AU, AU post-"Confessions", Captivity, Gen, Kidnapping, New Hampshire, Pregnancy, Season 5B, father/son bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2017-12-25 13:29:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 20,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walt's off to New Hampshire to start a new life, but loose ends need to be dealt with, and decisions have to be made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Taken

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Breaking Bad, and I make no money from this.
> 
> Warning: Slurs against Hispanics, children in danger, sexist language, evil white power guys... and Todd.

Brock was almost afraid to breathe. Everything had happened so quickly and he didn’t know what to do. He was pressed hard against the floor, under his bed, hiding behind a blanket that hung down off of it. He wanted to peek out and see but then they might see him and Jesse had told him to stay hidden no matter what until it was safe to come out.

“How will I know?” Brock had asked, and Jesse had looked sad then.

“Probably when a police officer calls for you, Brock. Okay? Can you stay hidden until then?”

“Okay,” Brock replied softly. Fear was ebbing at every corner of him, but he listened to the instructions. His mother and Jesse seemed dead serious. He needed to listen to them… 

And there he was. He’d heard everything they had said after that, Jesse’s burst of a confession saying that a man named Walter White might be coming for them all and that they needed to get out of town. “This man poisoned Brock, Andrea… This man… I don’t know what else he might do to get to me. We need to leave, we need to leave now. But if he comes now we need to make sure Brock is safe. Is there anyone who can come get him?”

“What about Saul?” Andrea asked, “Don’t you trust him?”

Jesse shook his head.

“Not anymore.”

The door had burst open then. There had been a sound of surprise from Jesse and a scream from Andrea.

“I’m guessing Mr. White sent you,” Jesse hissed with rage.

A voice belonging to a man Brock couldn’t see replied, “That old coot? He doesn’t know about this. He’d never sacrifice his precious Jesse…” The voice was seething with condescension. “Housed up with his little spic slut. That whore Lydia’s demanding a better cook or she’s going to fire us from our own damn operation. You’re going to show Todd how to do it.”

“Todd? That whackjob is behind this? Guess he was too much of a pussy to come on his own so he sent you assholes.”

“Shut up, Pinkman. If you do what we want, maybe we’ll let your bitch and her kid live. Where is that kid anyway? Brock, oh Brooooock!”

“You leave him the fuck out of it! He isn’t even here, and you’ll never find him.”

Brock shook. This man was scary and this man wanted to find him… But Jesse was going to protect him. He was going to be okay. He just had to stay hidden like Jesse had said. Like he was playing.

He held his breath and listened. He wanted to peek, to see what was going on, but it was too dangerous. He would just stay here, still. 

“Come with us, Jesse,” the man declared a few moments later, “Make it easy on yourself. We don’t want to hurt you… But we will if we have to.” Brock heard a struggle and then a horrible sound of someone getting hit, hard. He knew that sound. He hated that sound.

He could hear his mom cry out, too, and Brock scooted further under the bed. He should go to her, he should do something, he needed to do something… But what could he do? He was just a kid… those men were big and scary.

But a little voice whispered to him in his head, _Tomas would know what to do. Tomas wasn’t afraid of anything. Don’t be a little scaredy-cat, Brock._ Still he couldn’t move. He was fixed to the spot. There was the sound of a door opening, and Brock stayed, still, waiting for the person Jesse said would come.

He waited a long time, to the point where he was hungry and needed the bathroom besides, but he wasn’t going to budge in case those men were still out there.

He didn’t know how long it was before he heard the footsteps and then a familiar voice calling, “Jesse? Jesse? Are you there? It’s me. It’s Walt. Are you alive? Jesse, come out!”


	2. Plus One

Walt heard a little squeak coming from under the bed. Considering that Jesse wouldn’t have fit under the bed, even at the peak of his skinniness, and that he wasn’t sure Jesse could have ever made that particular sound, he figured it must be Brock hiding under there.

“Brock? Is that you down there? It’s okay to come out. I won’t hurt you.”

He slowly lifted up the blanket that was shielding the area under the bed from view and saw two little brown eyes staring at him, open wide and full of fear. The little figure was pressed against the floor, shivering. _Found you._

“Brock,” Walt said softly, crouching down. “It’s all right. I’m Jesse’s friend, remember? What happened?”

“Walt?” Brock echoed. His voice was barely above a whisper. 

“You can come out, Brock. Tell me what happened, okay?” Walt encouraged. He felt like he was back in the first year of he and Skyler’s marriage, trying to convince their kitten to get out from under the oil tank in their basement. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Brock stared at him, before very slowly scotching forward. Once he saw, perhaps, that Walt wasn’t going to grab him and pull him out, he slipped out the rest of the way. He didn’t stand, but rather sat and curled himself into a ball. 

“Brock?” Walt called again, “Could you tell me what happened? Do you know where Jesse is?”

“Bad men came,” Brock whispered, “They took him away.”

Walt’s heart started pounding, like it was going to explode out of his chest. 

“Did you hear them say anything… like did they call each other by name?”

“They said… about somebody named Todd. And somebody named Lydia.” Brock slowly uncurled to gaze up at Walt with big brown eyes. “They hit him. They hit Jesse.”

Walt’s mind ran at a hundred miles an hour. If Jack’s guys had Jesse, then Jesse was doomed. He would never get him back. He could probably figure out exactly where they were – probably at the same compound where they’d met to discuss the assassination of Mike’s ten guys – but one man against an entire White Supremacist compound was basically suicide. That was if Jesse and Andrea were even still alive. If they’d struggled, if Andrea had tried to run or if Jesse had given them the lip he tended to give to people… then it was all over.

The only person Walt knew for sure that he could save was standing right in front of him.

“Brock.” Walt put out his hand. “Come with me. I’m going to bring you somewhere safe, okay?” He was reminded of the words he had spoken to Jesse after he’d taken him from the crack den, after Jane… another disaster he was to blame for. _We’re going to walk out of here and take you somewhere nice and safe…_

“Where?”

Walt looked at him.

“Probably… a fire station or the police station. Or social services. They’ll take care of you.”

Brock looked up at him, the fear seeming to ebb a little in his eyes to be replaced by a childish determination.

“I want to find my mom and Jesse.”

Walt shook his head.

“Brock, we can’t. I’m sorry. We can’t. I need to get you somewhere safe now, okay? Listen to me… I’m going to bring you to the police and…”

“…I’ll tell them.”

Walt’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, and he tried to read the comment a hundred different ways before he responded, thinking that Brock clearly couldn’t mean what he thought he did. He had to be overly paranoid. He just had to get this kid off somewhere safe and then he’d go to Saul’s man and he’d vanish forever.

“What do you mean by that, Brock?”

Brock’s eyes showed fear again, but when he spoke, his voice didn’t shake or waver.

“I’ll tell them that you poisoned me.”

Walt looked at him in fury and slammed his hand down against the night table.

“Are you serious? You’re actually serious right now! If I’m the kind of man who’s okay with poisoning a child… and you’re blackmailing me? What makes you think that I won’t take your little bratty ass outside, shoot you, and dump you in a barrel?”

Brock looked up at him and in the same voice whispered, “You’re Jesse’s friend.”


	3. Lambert and Nephew

The disappearer needed some convincing when Walt had informed him that he’d need not one new identity, but two.

“What’s with the kid?” the man inquired, looking into his rearview mirror at the back seats where Brock and Walt both sat, and Walt narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t pay you to ask questions. But he’s here of his own free will. He’s not a kidnap victim. Are you, Brock?”

Brock stared out the window, his eyes slowly opening and shutting, before slowly shaking his head. Walt felt something deep in his gut, a need to protect this child, all that was left of Jesse. Maybe he hadn’t been Jesse’s by blood but… Jesse hadn’t been Walt’s son by blood, either, but he seemed to be one just the same.

“Here’s your new driver’s license,” the man said, handing the card back to Walt, “Mr. Lambert. I’ll get school records and a birth certificate drawn up for the kid next within a week. You want me to say he’s your son?”

Walt hedged.

“Nephew. Son would just bring up too many questions.”

The man shrugged, even though he was probably wondering why nephew wouldn’t bring up the same exact questions.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Walt asked a few moments later.

“Franconia, New Hampshire. Sit back and relax, it’s going to be a long ride.”

Walt looked across at Brock. 

“I beg of you… please do not say ‘are we there yet?’”

Brock just kept looking out the window.

***

“Ninety-six percent. Good job, Jesse.”

Jesse raised his eyes as he shifted, trying to relieve the tension in his back that came from being weighted with a giant chain. 

Todd seemed to want a “thank you”, but Jesse had no intention of giving it to him. They’d been here for hours already, in this dank, dark room with only a dim light emitting from the ceiling, and Jesse had already come up with a million plans for how he could take that blonde asshole out of the equation for good. Only one thing held him back, and that was Andrea, sitting on a bench with her hands tied behind her back and looking at him with an expression that he couldn’t read.

He couldn’t risk her. He couldn’t. 

“Well,” Todd began again, not even seeming annoyed that Jesse didn’t respond, not seeming… not seeming to feel much of anything… “I’ll see you tomorrow. I suggest that the two of you get some rest.” He walked over to Andrea, head held high, and reached behind her to open the cuffs. She still had the same chain looped around her stomach as the one that held Jesse, but now her arms hung free and she shook them to relieve the numbness. She stayed silent until Todd disappeared up the ladder and out of the grate. 

Jesse swallowed hard once he was gone, trying not to sob. 

“Baby, I’m so sorry for this. I’m so sorry…”

Andrea started to pace, back and forth, along the pulley. She crossed her arms. 

Jesse swallowed hard and then he looked at her.

“First… first chance you get, you should run, Andrea.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I run, they kill you but if you run… if you make it… I’m okay with that.”

Andrea lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Jesse.

“No,” she replied. There was a bite to her voice. “Either both of us are getting out of here, or neither of us is.”


	4. Franconia

They drove up on a street of little houses, all of which were spread out in front of a mountain. Brock’s eyes went wide as he seemed to take it all in, but he still didn’t speak. Walt wondered if he’d been too traumatized to do much beside that initial threat, and thought that maybe, threat or not, he should have just taken the kid to the cops. Too late to do that now, however. Brock was his responsibility, and they were a very long way away from home.

“This is your stop,” the man informed them, and a few moments later he had disappeared and Walt and Brock were standing in front of a two-story red house.

Walt walked up and rang the doorbell, then stepped back to wait. What the hell was even going on here? 

The door opened to reveal a woman with caramel skin and braided black hair. 

“Oh, hi. You’re here,” she said. “You found your way here all right, I take it?”

Walt nodded, not ready to give any additional information just yet.

“I’m Lanita Bridges,” the woman continued, extending her hand, “I’m the landlord for all of the houses on this property.” Walt nodded.

“Walter Lambert,” he replied, and shook her hand. “And this is my nephew, Rael.”

Brock looked up and corrected, “Brock.”

“Goes by his middle name,” Walt explained quickly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Lambert,” Lanita looked down and smiled, “And Brock. Let me show you to the property.” She stepped down off the step and started off down the road, not stopping to lock her door. “You’ll probably like it here. Good school, lots of kids around. How old are you, Brock?”

“Eight,” he spoke up quietly.

“My little girl is seven. Her name’s Janae. We live right next door.” Lanita passed a huge yard before starting up a walkway that led to another huge red house. “This is the property you’ll be renting. You’ve already prepaid the first two months, so you’re good there.” She pulled out a set of keys and handed them to Walt. “If you need anything, just stop by and let me know.” A smile crossed her face again. “Welcome to Franconia.”

***

The next door neighbors on the other side of the Lamberts were a family who had come over in the last few years from Ireland, the Brennans. Patrick and Michelle and their two daughters, Caitlin and Alanna. They were both Brock’s age, with Caitlin a little older, perhaps ten, and Alanna a little younger, perhaps six or seven. They seemed friendly.

In fact, everyone did, which was a little surprising for such a small town. Walt still wasn’t entirely used to it, but it seemed to do Brock good to spend his first day running around with the girls, chasing each other with sticks and exploring the closest parts of the mountain. Maybe he would start to open up a little more, and most of all, hopefully he would drop this ridiculous idea of going back to Albuquerque or wherever and taking back Jesse and Andrea from the white power compound. Walt was almost entirely sure that they were both dead in the ground, but Brock didn’t need to know that.

This was a nice place, a place where Brock could grow up. If Walt beat this thing at last, he could stay here with him, keep him safe. If he didn’t, well… He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. But at least he had him away from Jack’s crew and all their awful bloodthirsty ways. And if Jesse was alive, Walt had taken away one thing they could use against him.

They’d never find Brock. Not here.

Walt let a small Heisenberg smirk curl across his face. At least he had one trump card. The possibility of Brock getting hurt out here was zilch, nothing… unless he slipped on a patch of ice or something similar.

Jesse would be proud of him. Jesse would understand why he’d done all the things that he had. 

“Brock!” Walt called, standing on the stoop of the Lamberts’ new home as his cell phone, his new one, announced that it was six o’clock. “Dinner!”


	5. Dreaming of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs used: "Dreaming of You" by Selena, and "Red is the Rose", the fic namer, a traditional Irish song. All rights reserved to the copyright holders.

The first night, they didn’t give Jesse and Andrea anything to sleep on, besides the cold concrete of the grate that they’d placed them in.

“Do you think they’ve found Brock?” Andrea whispered, and Jesse wasn’t sure whether she meant the police or these white power assholes.

“I… He’s got to be safe,” he said firmly, as if saying it would make it true against all reason. “They don’t even know he’s out there. They’ve got the two of us, maybe they’ll give up. They don’t… they don’t need him to make us do what they want.” Jesse touched Andrea’s shoulder softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

She turned to look at him. 

“I won’t let anything happen to you either, Jesse. We’re going to get through this.”

Jesse swallowed hard.

“I only wanted to protect you… that’s why I broke up. I never stopped loving you.”

She reached out and touched his face. 

“I knew it. Jesse… We’re going to get out of here and find Brock, okay? But tearing yourself up about this isn’t going to do it. We’ve just got to keep moving until we figure out a way out.” She stretched out and propped herself up with her arm. “In the meantime… Let’s just remember that we’re both here, and we’re both safe.” She moved as close to Jesse as the chains would allow, resting her head on Jesse’s shoulder. 

“I can’t sleep,” Jesse whispered.

“You have to try. You need to get your energy up,” Andrea told him quietly. “What if…” She let the thought trail off, before reluctantly deciding to finish it. “What if I sang to you?”

Jesse looked up with broken eyes and nodded, as Andrea tried to think of a song. 

Finally she began, in a soft, lilting voice:   
_“Late at night when all the world… is sleeping…  
I stay up and think of you…   
and I wish on a star…   
that somewhere you are, thinking of me too…”_

Jesse wished he could wrap his arms around her, but he settled for looking in her eyes, until slowly his own began to slip shut, dreaming of irresistible, impossible escape.

***

After a quick jaunt to the grocery store, Walt successfully managed to put together a halfway decent meal for himself and Brock, and in an attempt to hide in plain sight, he invited Lanita and her daughter over to share it.

Janae Bridges was smaller than Brock, a pint-sized little girl with dark braids and cocoa-colored skin. She was as talkative as Brock was shy, and the two seemed to have hit it off immediately. After dinner, they rushed upstairs into Brock’s new room.

Walt would have to order things to fill that new room, maybe off Amazon – what did Brock even like? He’d get him some of those portable video games. He seemed to like things like that. Made sense. He’d be right on it.

“Looks like you didn’t bring a whole lot with you,” Lanita commented as she picked up one of Walt’s just-bought wine glasses and poured herself a drink. 

“We left in a hurry,” Walt admitted, then tried to make it not sound suspicious. A lie with just a bit of truth coating it. “Brock’s parents… They’re gone. A new start was what he needed.” Walt lifted his own glass and took a sip. 

“God, that’s horrible,” Lanita commented, “What happened to them?”

“White supremacists,” Walt admitted. Lanita blinked at him. 

“Like a hate crime?” she inquired. “That’s awful. In this day and age, too.” 

“Tell me about it,” Walt replied. “I didn’t need any more reason to high-tail it out of there.”

“I would have, too. The poor thing.” Lanita raised her head in the general direction of Brock.

“What about you?” Walt pressed. “What’s your story?”

“Not much to tell.” Lanita took a sip and placed her glass back on the counter. “Franconia has, according to the census, a point-eleven percent African-American population. That would be me.” She chuckled. “Lived here my whole life. Got married, had Janae, got divorced – great guy, but married to his job. He moved to Japan.” She shrugged. “Franconia’s quiet. If you wanted to get away, you couldn’t have picked a better place.”

***

Luckily, the place came somewhat furnished, with a bed for Brock that Walt just needed to buy sheets, blankets and pillows for. 

The visitors had gone home, and Walt sent Brock to bed, hoping this would send childish thoughts of riding in on white horses to save the damsels in distress from his mind. Brock would wake up in the morning and realize that now, Franconia was all there was.

Walt could get used to this. He had eighty million reasons to live a good life, and once the heat was down he’d send it to Skyler and the kids.

“Uncle Walt?” Brock inquired, curled up under the blanket and tossing and turning on the pillow.

“Yeah, Brock?”

“Could you… uh… my mom usually sings to me?”

Walt knelt by the side of the bed.

“Yeah, okay. I could do that. I don’t have much of a voice though.”

“Don’t care,” Brock whispered, looking at the wall.

Walt wracked his mind for a song to sing, before settling on one. It was wholly inappropriate, but he cleared his throat to sing it nonetheless. It had a nice tune to it. 

_“Come over the hills my handsome Irish lad  
Come over the hills to your darling  
You choose the road love, and I'll make a vow  
That I'll be your true love forever…”_

He’d heard it as a kid, maybe. Sometime long ago. Maybe his own mother had sung it to him. An old Celtic song with a pleasant tune.

He tried not to think of Jesse as he sang it, or of Skyler with her soft blonde hair that shone against the moonlight.

He cleared his throat, tried not to cough, and sang until Brock was still against the pillow, his little chest rising and falling:  
 _“Red is the rose by yonder garden grows  
And fair is the lily of the valley  
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne  
But my love is fairer than any…”_


	6. Substitution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some seriously creepy/disturbing stuff in this chapter.

Each day, when Jesse was done with the cook, Todd and the others would come in and throw him around, beat him black and blue and wouldn’t stop until blood streaked the concrete of the cell.

Andrea couldn’t take it, clasping her hands tightly over her ears and sobbing, pleading for them to let Jesse go. That he’d done all they wanted and that they would kill him.

This went on for at least three or four days until, burnt down to the wick, she made her offer.

“I’ll do whatever you want, okay? Whatever you want. Just do it, okay?” She was pleading, sobbing, her hands up in the air and over her face. “He can’t take much more of this… If you want him to cook… he needs to be able to move! So whatever you want…”

“Andrea, no,” Jesse pleaded from his spot on the concrete, trying and failing to wipe the blood from his nose with his shackled hands. She shook her head.

“Whatever you want.” She closed her eyes, shut them tight, before slowly opening them and beginning to unbutton her blouse. This was horrifying and gut-churning, but it was filling her with less dread than the thought of them hitting Jesse one more time.

“Oh, I should’ve known!” Jack declared, laughing. “These Mexican girls are all sluts, aren’t they? Toddy…” He called to his nephew, and Todd stepped forward.

“Yeah Uncle Jack?”

“Take her upstairs so you two can get more comfortable.”

“No, no, no… please,” Jesse tried to rattle his chains, tried to get in between the men and Andrea, but he failed. 

She turned to look at Jesse and felt Jack’s breath against her ear.

“And if you don’t listen, we’ll make him get it so bad he never walks right again.”

She turned her face away, unable to look at him as Todd took her by the hand and led her up the ladder and out of the cell.

***

“Let’s pull her hair back a little bit more. It’s still too curly. It’s distracting.” 

Andrea leaned forward and let Kenny pull her hair into another bun as per Todd’s complaint. The black heels hurt her feet and the skirt felt too short, too awkward for someone who was used to walking around in jeans and T-shirts. The blouse was too stuffy for the weather and she could feel her pulse beginning to race, her head feeling far too hot. 

“Up straight. Lydia doesn’t slouch.” 

Andrea put her hands at her side and stood up nice and tall. She tried a smile, but she felt like she might start sobbing, so she stopped.

It sounded like Lydia didn’t smile much, anyway.

“Looks good to me, Toddy,” Jack declared. “Like Lydia with a tan.”

“Hmmm…” Todd mused. “I’ll need to feed you a little less, though. No offense, Andrea, but you’re a little pudgy. Lydia’s a size 2. But… You’re trying your best. And that’s good. That’s really, really good.”

***

Walt enrolled Brock in the little elementary school up the road, close enough so he could walk it. Each night Brock came home, and Walt helped him with homework. They watched TV together. He found that he was probably spending more time with Brock than he had with either of his own kids – it wasn’t as if there was much else to do in town, given that Walt wasn’t exactly an avid skier.

Walt found himself increasingly looking forward to the days when Brock brought home science homework and projects, even though they were only little volcanos or miniatures of cells or atoms. He’d explain how whatever it was worked, and go past it, off on one of his tangents that had so often got shut down in the past given that there wasn’t a Gretchen or Gale around to listen to it anymore.

But Brock didn’t shut him down. He looked up at him with curious, wide eyes, took note of what Walt was saying and even asked questions.

Maybe there was something to this, at very last. 

Things were going well. Better than well, in fact. Up until the day when, at the end of Walt’s explanations, Brock cocked his head to the side, looked straight at him and said, “Uncle Walt? Can you teach me how to shoot a gun?”


	7. Training Sessions

Teaching Brock how to shoot was pretty high up on the list of things that Walt did not want to do. However, Brock was insistent. 

“Tomas was going to show me how, and that was a long time ago,” he told Walt, sitting back against the couch and giving him that look that seemed to somehow eat right through him. “I need to know how, so that when we go back to get Mom and Jesse, I can help.”

“Brock…” Walt said with a sigh, “I don’t know if we can go back. And if there is a way, I’m going back alone. I’m not bringing you into this. You’re a child. And you’re my responsibility. I’m not bringing you somewhere dangerous. Jesse would have my head, and rightfully so.”

“Tomas was going to show me how,” Brock insisted again. “I need to learn.”

“Tomas… had some problems, Brock.” Walt was quickly losing patience. “It’s decided. I am not teaching you how to shoot a gun. You can throw a tantrum if you want, you can kick and scream if you want, but I’m not…”

***

“Okay. Hold it like this, Brock.” Walt demonstrated, gingerly lifting the rifle and leveling it, aiming at some unknown spot in the distance. They were both bundled up in parkas. 

“Like this?” Brock inquired. When he accepted the gun back, his grip was shaky.

“No, Brock. Firm. Like you mean business. Not like you’re afraid of it!”

Brock tightened his grip.

“Okay, Uncle Walt.”

“That’s right, Brock. Good job. Now, do you think you’re up to trying one of these out? I was thinking I could take you hunting.”

Brock stared at him. 

“Hunting for what?”

“Deer, probably,” Walt replied matter-of-factly, and Brock shook his head.

“I don’t want to shoot deer. Deer are nice,” he insisted. 

“Try telling that to the people who run into them on the road,” Walt replied dryly, but at the distressed look in Brock’s eyes, he relented. “Let’s shoot beer cans.”

Brock smiled and nodded.

“Beer cans. Okay.”

A short trip to the local general store later, and a number of cans of beer drunk by Walt (who still somehow felt stone sober, and had given Brock a side-eye when he asked if he could have one), their range was set up in the woods behind the house. 

“Be very careful, Brock. I’m going to be standing right behind you.” He positioned himself right behind Brock and helped the boy level the gun against his shoulder. “There shouldn’t be much recoil here, but still be careful.”

Brock looked straight ahead at the cans. His finger was shaking.

“It’s okay, Brock. Line up. Keep it in your sights and then when you’re ready, pull the trigger.”

Brock swallowed hard and lined up as well as he could, then pulled back on the piece of metal. He yelped and flinched as the bullet flew by, overshooting the can he was aiming for by a few inches. 

He threw the gun down on the ground.

“I’m never going to be good enough to get them back.” He burst into a sob and started to walk back towards the house.

“No,” Walt said firmly, “Brock. You get back here. We’re going to do this again. We’re going to do it until you get it right.”

Brock pivoted and looked back at Walt with something that might have been love.

***

The sun was setting when Andrea made her way down the ladder to the grate. She’d kicked off the high-heels and returned to her more practical sneakers, but she was still wearing the awkward blouse, the skirt, and the lipstick.

“Hey, Jesse,” she called. Jesse was curled up against the mattress they’d finally given them to share, his head ducked and his body quivering with sobs.

He looked up at her like he didn’t believe she was really there.

“Andrea.”

“Hey, baby.” She leaned in and slowly wrapped her arms around him, even as she was seized with a fear that after what he thought she must have been doing up there, or even what she actually did up there, he wouldn’t want to touch her or want anything to do with her.

“You’re safe,” Jesse whispered. “Did they hurt you? I was so worried. I was so…”

“Hey… It’s okay. I’m not hurt… Just creeped out.” Andrea tried to keep her voice light, even as the memories of sitting across from Todd and being served random tea, pretending to be some other woman and knowing where this had to lead one day sent a shiver up her spine. “But I’m okay. Are you…” She gently touched his face, which was slowly becoming a mess of scars and blood, and he flinched. 

“I’m just glad you’re back,” he told her. “I don’t want you going up there again.”

Andrea swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure if that was an option.


	8. I Was Falling in Love

“Andrea isn’t going up there again.” Jesse’s heart was pounding, and his throat was dry and cracked. He knew that he was going to catch hell for this, but he could only hope that she wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to sit by and allow those assholes, people like Todd, people like Jack, put their hands all over his girlfriend… Though in all honesty, he didn’t even know whether she was his girlfriend anymore. He had broken up with her, after all, trying to save her, trying to protect her from him and his lifestyle, trying to stop her from ending up like Jane. Even if they weren’t going to be together, though, he loved Andrea, cared about her, and didn’t want her to ever be harmed. Especially not on his account. It was all his fault that she was even here with him in the first place.

“Okay,” Jack replied, crossing his arms. “Suit yourself.”

Jesse let out a sigh of relief, before clutching his palms again. It couldn’t be that easy.

“My nephew’s going to be hella disappointed, though. He likes the little lady a lot.”

Andrea’s expression was unreadable as she watched, not saying a word. 

“We might have to take out our… disappointment… on you,” Jack continued. “We’ll see what my nephew wants. What he thinks is an appropriate way to… settle this.”

“Please don’t hurt Jesse,” Andrea spoke up, pleading. “Please don’t hurt him. He’s done everything you wanted him to.”

“Sorry,” Jack said with a big smile. “But we’ve got to do something. Looks like we’ll have to get our entertainment from the little pussy tonight.”

He reached out and grabbed Jesse’s hair hard, threw him forward, and began to land blows on him. 

Andrea curled up in a ball and sobbed. Jesse could hear it. He thought that he’d hear it every day for the rest of his life.

***

A snowman was slowly forming outside Walt’s new house; the base had been built sturdily and the torso was beginning to take shape, as Brock, Janae, and the two other neighbor girls, Caitlin and Alanna, worked on it in between beaning each other with snowballs and making snow angels.

Walt leaned against his kitchen counter and looked at Lanita, who was talking about her job; she worked at the local elementary school as a music teacher.

“When they’re young, they aren’t worried about… tune, and who’s good and who’s bad. They just want to sing,” she explained. “When they get older, suddenly everything’s a competition. It’s depressing, honestly.”

“I used to teach high school Chemistry,” Walt replied. “By the time they got to me, they just didn’t care anymore. All that they cared about was their cell phones, boyfriends and girlfriends, who had a car…” Walt thought of Jesse, as he’d seen him so many years ago, sitting in the back of his class and sleeping or not paying attention, and he felt a pang in his heart. Where was Jesse now? Dead in a ditch? Dissolved in a barrel? Where were those gentle blue eyes and that honest, naïve smile?

And poor Andrea, Brock’s mother. She hadn’t had anything to do with their business, and yet she had gotten caught up in it. 

Walt found himself guiltily comforting himself that at least it hadn’t been Skyler.

But if it had? Wouldn’t he have been filled with the same single-minded revenge that seemed to shake Brock’s tiny frame?

There was something else now, though, too. As he looked up and listened to Lanita’s reply, he felt less the actual words and more the cadence of them, the gentle lilt, and felt his heart flutter a little bit.

He was too old to have some schoolboy crush. 

He was supposed to feel for Skyler, and her only. They’d been married sixteen years, they had two children… He still wore that wedding ring.

Walt felt his hand slip into his pocket as he tried to work that ring off in a clandestine way. Opened too many questions, didn’t it? He was just trying to fit into his cover better. It didn’t mean anything.

It didn’t mean he was falling for the woman across the room from him. It didn’t mean anything.


	9. Roles

It wasn’t long before Andrea was back up in the clubhouse, dressed like Lydia and leaning on Todd’s arm with a big smile.

She found it in herself to smile this time because at least if she were here, Jesse was safe. Jesse could heal from the last week’s beatings without Jack and his friends administering a new one. She knew Jesse didn’t like it, but what could she have done?

There weren’t many options yet.

“My nephew’s got a real looker here,” Jack commented. 

Andrea curtsied. She supposed that was what one was supposed to do in an outfit like this. 

“Thank you.”

“So polite, too!” Jack almost seemed delighted. He reached out and smacked Andrea’s ass, sending her falling forward on her heels. Todd awkwardly caught her by her shoulders.

“Uncle Jack,” he said, more annoyed than angry. “You gotta be careful. These ladies are real, y’know, fragile.”

Jack snorted.

“Not these Mexican girls. You should see what they do to get across the border in the first place.”

Andrea pursed her lips and kept silent. She had to stick to her plan. Todd had to be the key… maybe he was the key.

Todd looked at her and shrugged.

“He don’t mean it,” he told her. “They just like to play. When they play like that… it means they like you.”

Andrea fluttered her eyelashes. The words were coming out of her mouth before she had much choice in them.

“That’s not how I show someone I like them.”

“Oh?” 

Even his eyelashes were blonde.

“Yeah,” Andrea told him. She reached out and took his hand. It was sweaty, clammy, not calloused but soft like Jesse, not like Jesse with his tattoo and his little scars on each finger. “Why don’t I show you how?”

Todd looked at her as if he didn’t even understand at first, not until Jack and the others started hooting and hollering.

“We made a good choice, getting this one too!” Kenny exclaimed loudly. “Hey Toddy, once you’re done, can I have her next?”

Andrea tried to quiet her shiver. 

“No, she’s my girlfriend!” Todd declared, offended. “She should only be with me. And Jesse, I guess. I mean she’s his girlfriend too and all.”

Andrea let out a sigh of relief.

“Let’s go,” she urged. As scary as what was awaiting her up there in that bedroom with the door closed, it had suddenly become less scary that whatever was waiting her here if she stayed.

****

“Roses? For me? Are you trying to get a lower rate on your rent?” Lanita teased as she walked out of her house, dressed in heels and a skirt and blouse that were partially covered by a parka. Brock and Janae were both over at the Brennans’ for the night. Brock, who was starting to hit those targets, Walt remembered as he looped his arm around the woman he was taking out for the night. He would have to deal with that. But not right away. Not right now.

“No, just trying to start the evening off right,” Walt teased in response. He looked her up and down, including the bright blue earrings that matched her skirt. He reached out and offered her his arm, and she chuckled.

“Where did you come from, Walter Lambert?” She smiled at him and climbed into the passenger seat of his car, waiting until the heat came on to unzip the parka and reveal her white blouse with blue flowers on it. “So, where are we off to?”

“The Tuscan Kitchen,” Walt replied. “I’m going to wine and dine you. Are you ready?”

His mind was filled with memories of his dates with Skyler. How he’d spotted her in that restaurant so many years ago with her beautiful blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had been so young then… they both had been. Back then, things had been simple, long before he’d complicated his life with a drug empire and an adopted son who he’d poisoned to kill a drug lord… To say it to himself made it seem unreal, like another life. Even now, though, he hungered for it, even though he knew it was done. He was out. He wasn’t even Walter White anymore. 

Lanita grinned. 

“I’m definitely ready.” She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to have the night of my life.” She looked at him and winked. “Maybe you will, too.”

***

Jesse could never sleep while Andrea was upstairs in the clubhouse. He had tried, once, but he had dreamed of Andrea with no eyes and covered in blood, screaming out for him while he lay restrained, unable to help her, unable to lift a hand.

He dreamt of Todd putting his hands all over her, hurting her while she cried. 

When he awoke from these dreams, he wished that they would beat him, make him bleed, anything than whatever went on upstairs. He was too afraid to ask Andrea about it, and she didn’t volunteer. Each time she simply slipped down the ladder and walked over to him, putting his face between her hands and stroking his cheek lovingly, telling him that everything would be all right, that she was okay and they were both okay.

When she was back in his arms, he could sleep at last. He always dreamt of escape.


	10. Six of One

Walt breathed out as he held the sleeping Lanita against him, ran his tongue over the bridge of his mouth and drank in her scent like it was the only real thing left in the universe.

That morning, Brock had hit every single one of the beer cans, and he was talking about going back to save Andrea again. It had been a month since they had left, a month since Walt had talked to Skyler or any of the rest of his family, and a month since Brock knew for sure that any of his were alive.

He had to give him some kind of answer, but what? He knew that if it had been his own family, he would be back… or he would have tried, at least. And Jesse was close enough to family, despite the fact that he had tried to burn down Walt’s house. That seemed like so long ago, now. It seemed like a fiction his mind had conjured up to give him a reason why he didn’t like Jesse anymore. A loophole to keep him from rushing in to save him the way he had before.

Brock was forging connections, too. He was close with all three of the neighbor girls, but there was a restlessness in him, and he kept telling Walt every single night that this was not his home. The ABQ was.

He could remember the conversation from the night before.

“I’m going back. We need to go back.”

“You’re not going to get very far without me, Brock, so you better sit tight and let me worry about figuring out a plan for this.”

“We’re taking too long. They need us.”

He hadn’t had the heart to tell him what was clear in his heart. All Jesse and Andrea probably needed was a funeral. 

After all, it was only three weeks until Christmas. It was best to let Brock still believe that some miracle would bring them both back to safety, that some Hail Mary would give him their voices on the phone. That somehow they would know where Walt and Brock had gotten to. Or that they could go back and fix it. That going back was even an option.

Walt rolled out of bed and shuffled downstairs. As soon as Brock left for school, he’d have to start his chemo regimen for the day. That thought process led uncomfortably to thoughts of what he was going to do about Brock when he finally got too sick to take care of him or died. 

Maybe this relationship with Lanita was the key. He could trust her to care for Brock, to keep him safe. She was a kind and gentle woman, maybe a little naïve but in New Hampshire that wasn’t that big of a downside. She would keep Brock away from the horrible things in the world.

But what if he decided to go back of his own accord one day? Lanita didn’t know the whole story. She couldn’t stop him.

Walt sighed and breathed in again. He might be forced to go back and clean up his own mess while he still could. While he was still standing.

***

Andrea rolled into a sitting position, clutching her stomach and moaning.

“Andrea? What’s wrong, baby?” Jesse asked, concerned.

She shook her head.

“I don’t know… Stomach just hurts,” she told him. “I must be coming down with something…” She turned her head to the side and coughed, hard, as Jesse tried to hold her with his bound hands. 

“You shouldn’t go up there today,” he begged her. “Tell them you’re sick. You wouldn’t even be lying. You are sick. You’re too stressed. You need to lie down relax today.”

She shook her head.

“Need to go up. If I don’t go up, they hurt you,” she whispered back. “Jesse… If I keep going up I’ll figure out a way. A way to get us out and get us back to Brock. My baby needs me.”

Jesse sucked in a breath and leaned his head on her shoulder.

“Love you so much Andrea. But don’t let them hurt you for my sake, please… Please don’t. Stay in today. Stay with me. Cuddle up with me and let me take care of you.”

It was like a stab in his heart to realize that he couldn’t. Not like this. Not a dog on a leash. 

“I’m going to get you out of here somehow, Andrea… I promise.” Jesse tried not to cry. That would only make everything worse. He had to try and stay strong. Andrea was staying strong… how did she manage it? How did she stay so stoic?

He could have told her those secrets he was afraid to reveal. But he hadn’t… maybe if he had… 

“Jesse,” Andrea whispered softly, looking back at him. “I’m okay. It’s not that bad… when I go up. They don’t hurt me they’re just… it’s creepy but it’s not… they don’t…” She trailed off, reaching up to run her hand over Jesse’s hair. “We’re going to get out of this, and when we do, it’ll be so nice because you and me, and Brock, we’ll be together and we’ll be so safe. We’ll never have to think about this place ever again.”

“You promise?” Jesse asked quietly.

“Cross my heart.” She kissed his forehead.


	11. Merry Little Christmas

Walt crossed the floor of his bedroom with a sort of determination that he had previously reserved for plotting to kill people like Gus or Tuco.

This time, however, his dilemma was perhaps less immediate or deadly, but more heart-wrenching. It was three days before Christmas and he hadn’t really planned to last this long, and hadn’t planned to be up here with Brock of all people. And now there was this kind of impetus to do something, to make everything all right for the kid on this day if not any other day.

After all, it was going to be Christmas.

It was hard to even tell what Brock was thinking half the time. He had kept up with the shooting lessons, hoping it would distract him from the mission and hoping that he would be downright awful at it – not awful enough that he took out Walt in the process, but awful enough to reject any hope of his Odysseus-style plot.

Unfortunately, that hope seemed to be coming to naught. Brock was a good shot; he was learning quickly and he seemed to be able to focus his energy on the shooting when he was given the opportunity. Soon Walt wouldn’t be able to use inexperience and ineptitude as excuses not to bring Brock back to New Mexico to save Jesse and Andrea. Soon he’d have to tell him the truth.

Walt sighed out. Things were going well for him, otherwise at least. He and Lanita were spending more time than not over each other’s house. Just this day they had plans to bake Christmas cookies with their respective kids. If he thought about it hard enough, it would be as if the last year had never even happened at all, that Jesse hadn’t been killed and that Walt didn’t have a body count a mile long to atone for.

What did Brock even want for Christmas, besides revenge? Why hadn’t he asked the kid to make a list, to write to Santa? Did Brock even believe in Santa? Hell, did he believe in much of anything these days? 

Walt sighed and shook his head. He’d need to figure it all out eventually. Without Skyler to guide him, raising this son (or whatever he was; Walt couldn’t bring himself to let it feel permanent nor temporary) was a minefield; he was walking blindly through this.

He wished he could pick up the phone and talk to Skyler, find out how she was doing and whether the kids were okay. But he couldn’t do it – they could track him and, somehow, he didn’t want to hear what she would say. She would blame him, and she would be right. Walt couldn’t handle it. How the hell was he supposed to reconcile any of what he had done with his new life, new girlfriend, new kid? 

He paced again. He would figure it out; Brock would have a Christmas after all.

***

“Listen, so… It’s Christmas, right? I was thinking that, y’know, I could do something for you.”

Jesse looked up at Todd listlessly, trying to crawl as close to Andrea as he could but finding himself heavily impeded by the chains. 

“I was thinking, y’know, if you promise not to run away or do anything crazy like that, I could unchain you today.”

Jesse’s skin crawled at the thought of asking any sort of a favor from Todd, but the chains had scarred his arms up and down and the chain that attached to the dog run had made a giant welt on his back that he could feel but could not see. The thought of being free of them both, if only for a day, was too much to resist.

He spoke up quietly.

“I promise not to run away.”

He closed his eyes as he felt the shackles fall away, gasping like he had been drowning and had only just been allowed to come up for air.

“Thank you, Todd,” he blustered, hating himself the second the words came from his mouth. He opened his eyes to see the blonde giving him an amused, if curious, look and shaking his head.

“Merry Christmas, Jesse.” With that, he departed back up the ladder, leaving Jesse and Andrea alone.

Andrea took a step towards him, wrapping him in a gentle hug.

“You need a massage, baby?” she suggested gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. He smiled at her. 

“I’d love one. Everything’s so tense…”

“It’s Christmas,” she announced with a smile, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Why don’t I give you a little more than that? Quick, before the creeper decides to come down and take a look.” She grinned and began to unbutton her blouse, placing it neatly off to the side.

Jesse looked at her like a man dying of thirst would look at water.

“You want to?” he asked quietly.

“More than anything in the world.”

She lowered her hands to his zipper.

“Merry Christmas, Jesse. Sorry I couldn’t go out and buy you a present.”

“I love you, Andrea.” He reached out to touch her cheek as she wrapped her legs around him. “So much.” He closed his eyes and whispered, “Merry Christmas, Andrea.”

He swore that this would be the last that they’d spend in this place.

***

Brock sat on the floor, turning over the set of toy cars he’d just opened with a smile on his face, even as he looked up at Walt with a sense of sadness that seemed far older than his eight years. 

“Thanks, Uncle Walt,” he spoke up. “I used to have a blue one just like this at my house.”

He turned his head in the direction of the Christmas tree, as if remembering that he was meant to be happy today. 

“Could we make a turkey for dinner?” he asked. “With stuffing and everything?”

“Sure,” Walt replied. “We can make a Christmas turkey… I’ll just… run out and get one and we can go right ahead.”

Brock smiled again, a more genuine one this time, and stood up.

“Merry Christmas Uncle Walt.”

Walt let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Merry Christmas, Brock.”


	12. Winter Breaking

Jesse woke up and tried to stretch his arms, finding it impossible as he was reminded of the chains around him. He’d been having a nice enough dream, actually – one where he and Andrea were free, where they were out somewhere with Brock, eating food and just doing normal couple things. It would be so nice to just walk down the street, to snuggle up with each other in a warm bed, to think of frustrations such as having to pay bills and fix broken appliances. 

Some days he wondered why Mr. White had never come for him, but maybe that was the answer. Maybe Mr. White had known about this all along, and he was okay with Jesse being taken like this because Jesse had tried to burn Mr. White’s house down. But it wasn’t as if the man’s family had been inside – taking Jesse was one thing, but Andrea? She had never done anything to hurt him. Why would he be okay with them taking her?

Unless he didn’t know. Maybe he thought that Jesse had taken his advice after all and purposely disappeared. That he was in Alaska right now or something. That would mean that there was really no one out there looking for them – or for him, at least. He had a feeling that Andrea’s grandmother would send someone out looking for her, especially after she found Brock. Maybe Brock had told her what happened. Maybe the police or the FBI or someone like that was looking for them right now.

Where was Brock now, though? Hopefully Andrea’s grandmother had taken him in, had kept him going to the same school and was doting on him. She loved that boy as much as she hated Jesse; she’d probably just blame the whole thing on Jesse. That didn’t bother Jesse as much as he felt it probably should. If the cops came around looking for him, then there was a chance that they would find him here. He pictured the cops assuming he had taken off with Andrea like some kind of crazy stalker from a Lifetime flick.

He would actually rather that. At least that would mean they were looking, right? If they thought Jesse had just taken off with Andrea, then what reason would they have to hunt down two grown adults and try to roust them? 

But they couldn’t think… would they really think either of them would abandon Brock?

They probably would think that of him.

Jesse rolled up into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around his legs as best he could with the chains on him. His head was ringing. If only there was a way to get out of this place… 

***

“Down by the station, early in the morning…”

Walt turned his head to see Brock and the little neighbor girls running around in a circle, singing. He supposed it was a lot better than whatever else they could be up to. Brock seemed remarkably easy to raise, especially when he thought back to the kids he had grown up with. At Brock’s age, they had all been sneaking into places to get cigarettes, slamming each other into cars while playing hockey, and having fights that included the bigger boys grabbing antennas off of cars to whip the hapless opponent with.

Except for Walt, that was.

Walt had sat in the corner, his face in books, thinking that he was terribly above it all. Sometimes he had been picked on, but not harshly – it hadn’t been until he had become a teacher that the kids had gotten so cruel with him. He thought back on it now with a grim sense that if he’d been Heisenberg then, when he’d first entered the teaching field… maybe he would have squashed one of them like a bug. Maybe Chad, if he’d had the chance.

But maybe he would have been above it all then, too.

Walt decided that he was relieved to see Brock playing with the other kids at all. After all, Walt had been forced to pull the kid away from everything he used to know and the only family he had ever had. Every moment that he was just playing with the other kids was a moment that he wasn’t being obsessed with revenge, and that was a good thing. They didn’t write manuals for this sort of thing, after all – How to Stop Your Kid From Avenging His Mother’s Death: Six Tips to Help You Get Through the Tough Times.

It was special circumstances. 

Walt threaded his fingers together. It was cold out; well, it did tend to be cold in New Hampshire. He hadn’t expected just quite how cold, however – it was as different from Albuquerque as a place could be. Brock seemed to be adjusting all right, however, at least to the weather. He guessed that kids could be resilient in a lot of ways – if only Brock could be as resilient about everything as he was about ending up in a place that could get down to the double negative digits after growing up in a city with cacti. 

Walt wished that he himself was more adaptable. He kept rolling over in bed, expecting to find Skyler beside him, or to be awoken to the sound of Holly’s cries or Junior demanding something. He hadn’t talked to any of his family since he had vanished, however – he didn’t even know if they knew he was alive. From a law enforcement perspective, that was the best thing, of course – if they didn’t know anything, there wasn’t anything that the cops could get out of them. Skyler could act like a blameless victim, which in a way she was. It had all been Walt’s idea, all been Walt’s sacrifice. Not hers.

And this was his life now. His new sacrifice. He would take care of Brock; it was what Jesse would want. And Walt couldn’t live this new life all on his own. He needed something more. He was only now realizing that he always had.


	13. Changes

“Hi, Jesse,” Andrea whispered in Jesse’s ear as she cuddled close to him. She would have to take advantage of the moment, of being close to him for a while instead of having to be upstairs with Todd. 

It was bone-cold in the grate, but she would rather be here. She wrapped the tiny blanket around the both of them. She thought briefly of when she’d been growing up, wishing she had what rich people had, feeling as if she was always too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. There had always been too many things in their house that didn’t work; blue shut-off notices dropped off every month. But it hadn’t been money she’d yearned for, and she knew that now. It had been that emptiness that had kept her up nights.

She hadn’t felt close to anyone but her grandmother, who had always been at odds with Andrea’s mother. She’d disapproved of the men Andrea’s mother had brought home and, Andrea figured, with good reason – which hadn’t stopped her from being annoyed when her grandmother said the same things to her.

She wondered what the wise old woman would think of her now, stuck in a grate with her gringo drug dealer boyfriend, sleeping with a blonde psychopath to keep them both alive.

She’d have to understand, though. It was what she had to do. Jesse was family like Brock was family and – God, Andrea’s heart ached when she thought of Brock. She hadn’t seen him in so long. She thought of his little brown eyes, his shy smile, the way his voice sounded. The way he was scared of the dark sometimes and she would come in and hug him and remind him there was nothing to be afraid of. Who was coming in and taking care of him now? No one who cared as much about Brock as she did – who could love her son as much as she did?

Andrea shifted on to her knees as she felt her stomach lurch. She stumbled to her feet to get away from Jesse and threw up in the bucket in the corner of the grate. Wiping her mouth, she grimaced. She’d be smelling that for the rest of the morning until one of them came in and decided to take it. And this was the fourth day in the row of this. Either she was getting a hell of a stomach flu, or she was pregnant. Neither scenario was a good one. Not here, not now.   
She took a few breaths to try and settle her stomach. She didn’t want to wake Jesse. She wasn’t ready to tell him this. 

If this was what she was worried it was, that was. 

Not that she had a knack for getting pregnant at the right time – she had been fifteen when she had gotten pregnant with Brock, and had spent the majority of her junior year of high school either home or getting stared at by girls who were snickering behind their hands. Some kind of cautionary tale for the few middle-class kids at her school and just an object of derision for the other ones.

“Y’hear about Andrea?” they’d whispered, making sure she could hear.   
She’s been utterly alone in the world, at least, until Brock was born. Then she had known that she’d never be alone again. There was someone she had created, someone she adored. She needed him, loved him with all of her heart, even though the circumstances had been so bad.

This… this would be different, though. If she was sure that this was Jesse’s baby (if there even was a baby, she reminded herself, but somehow by each waking moment she became more and more sure that there must be), then she’d have been ecstatic… except for the imprisonment thing, of course. 

But if this baby was Todd’s, then what the hell was she going to do? It wasn’t like she currently had a whole lot of options, after all. If she wanted an abortion, she’d have to break out of here first to get it… And that didn’t seem like it was in the cards any time soon. But if she had to have this baby, she couldn’t imagine this as the place to do it. Neither circumstance seemed feasible at all. 

Her stomach lurched again and she shut her eyes. Maybe if she got back to sleep, it would all be a nightmare. How nice it would be to wake up in her own bed, feeling safe and warm… Hearing Brock’s footsteps in the hallway.

How nice it would be if it could all be back to normal again. If she closed her eyes long enough, maybe that would make it all go away. Maybe.


	14. Ordinary People

“Andrea?” Jesse asked one morning. “Are you… okay?”

He had been increasingly worried over the past few days. She seemed paler and sicker as the days went by, and it had to all be his fault. But even though she was getting sicker, she seemed to be getting wider in the waist…not that he was about to tell her that. 

Andrea had been attempting to hide the obvious from Jesse, but with such a little amount of clothing, she couldn’t go back to her old trick of wearing overly baggy clothing.

The only way she’d managed to hide it from Todd had probably been the fact that he had no idea what a pregnant woman actually looked like.

But Jesse… Jesse deserved better than that.

“Jesse,” Andrea told him, softly, taking his hand. “Don’t get upset. But… I think…” She paused. Think had gone out the window a few weeks ago. “Jesse, I’m pregnant.”

Jesse stared at her with open-mouthed horror.

“Andrea… is… do you know…”

She shook her head.

“No. It could be ours… It could be…” She trailed off, silent for a very long time. 

“What… are you going to do?” Jesse spoke up, his voice raspy and pained.

“I don’t know. Jesse… There’s things I could do, so that… I don’t… but they’re not safe here. And I don’t… I would normally say that I don’t want to. But I’m afraid that if I have this baby they’ll use it against us. They’ll hold my baby hostage to terrorize us. I can’t have my child opening their eyes and seeing this place. I can’t doom them to that life.”

“So what, then?” Jesse moved as close as he could to her. He damned the chains to hell, wanting desperately to hold her close and tell her it would be all right, somehow.

“We’ve got to get the Hell out of here is what,” Andrea told him, “We need to find a way to escape, and we need to get back home to Brock. Then we can figure out what to do about this baby. I… Honestly, I just don’t know. But any choice I make here is not… is not going to be right, Jesse. Do you understand?”

Jesse nodded, still stunned.

“I understand. But Andrea… If we try to get out… I don’t know what they’ll do. They might do something horrible, and I couldn’t let them hurt you.” He took a deep breath. “If we find a way, and only one of us has time to escape, I want it to be you.”

“Jesse, I couldn’t…”

“Yes, you could. And you’ve gotta. And then, if you… raise this baby, for me. Tell ‘em… Tell them that their dad loved them and maybe… Try and leave out all this horrible compound stuff.” He let out a low, hoarse chuckle.

“Baby, we’re both getting out. Either both of us get out or neither of us is.”

Jesse’s expression was one of someone very far away.

“Someone told me that once.”

“Who?”

“Someone who got us all out.”

***

Walt had spent the better part of his day sitting on the couch next to Lanita, drinking hot cocoa and waiting for the kids to get home from school.

Lanita had the day off. She had decided to take a personal day. Some substitute was currently getting pranked by all of the kids, and cursing his or her own existence. 

“It’s a beautiful day to just sit here, kick my feet up, watch the snow come down and just… I love snow, don’t you? It makes you feel like it’s a beautiful time to be alive.”

“I don’t know,” Walt hedged. “It’s nice to look at, but I’m glad we don’t have to shovel it. I’m really glad our mailboxes are so far out in the road. I used to live places where you had to shovel your walkway for the mailman or the township would raise a fuss.”

Lanita leaned in and kissed him.

“You know, you tend to be pretty vague about where ‘those places’ are.”

Walt looked at her and shrugged.

“There’s a lot that went on. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s in the past.”

Lanita propped her chin up and looked at him.

“Everyone’s got their own stuff,” she offered, “Might help to let somebody in on it. It can be pretty lonely being in it all alone.”

Walt shook his head.

“I work alone,” he told her, “Alone is what I do.” Images of Jesse flocked unbidden to his mind. The man was either dead or, if he wasn’t, he probably wished that he was. That wasn’t anything that Walt wanted to think about. It wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. A man dying of cancer and a ten-year-old boy could hardly take on whoever had taken off with Jesse and Andrea. Nothing would be gained and everything would be lost if he lost his head and decided to go running in there acting like Rambo. 

“Maybe it shouldn’t be what you do all the time,” Lanita suggested. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with letting someone in some of the time.”  
Walt looked at her, wanting to believe her. But he couldn’t tell her this. Skyler had been unable to handle it, and she’d only know the tip of the iceberg, only what she had found out on her own. 

What the hell would Lanita do if he told her he’d poisoned the boy he was now raising as his own? That he’d rigged up a bomb to a man in a wheelchair and plotted to flip the switch? 

She’d go running for the hills.

And looking at it this way… He couldn’t have blamed her if she did.


	15. Chapter 15

Months had gone by, and Brock seemed to be settling in, making friends and doing well in school. Walt could almost pretend that this was the way it always had been, the way it should be.

It was hard to completely forget about his family, however. He still thought of Skyler, of the kids. He wondered what Holly was up to, these days. Was she still jabbering away or was she talking in sentences now? 

How would Skyler react if he called now? If he asked her if he’d be allowed to come back?

Not that he could come back now. Everyone would be looking for him – Hank must know by now, must have figured out that he was Heisenberg. The news had rumbled about it, about the kingpin on the loose, but the good people of Franconia seemed to be none the wiser. Because after all, why would a kingpin come to such a sleepy little town? And most of all, why would he bring along a nine year old kid?

Brock was perfect camouflage, the same way his old job at the high school had been. No one would come looking for him when he was so perfectly normal. Lanita helped there, too. A normal man needed a normal girlfriend.

Even when that normal man was still married.

He couldn’t help but feel guilty about that part. He had gotten so bitter and betrayed over Skyler cheating with Ted, but wasn’t he doing the same thing? It wasn’t even in direct retaliation, not like the ill-fated pass at Carmen had been. Something about this felt methodical, and he didn’t like it. He liked to think that he wasn’t still Heisenberg, that this was something he could shut on and off. That he could go back to being the man he’d been before. He no longer wanted that darkness, now that the end was coming. All he wanted was to be happy.

And Franconia was the place that could make it happen.

Walt was sitting at his desk, tossing bills aside. He had plenty of money to pay them – that wasn’t going to be an issue, at least. He could pay bills for the entire town if he wanted to.

Did he want to? Was that his new plan – to be some sort of Jean Valjean who was going to swoop in and save anybody who might need saving?

That seemed like sort of a sad way to end such an illustrious criminal career. It was like those TV series that turn one of the ultimate bad-asses into a cuddly bunny for no apparent reason; those plotlines where the villains always had to end up working with the heroes.

He always hated those. It was better to be a villain – it was easier. It was more rewarding, too. He wasn’t a hero.

***

“I don’t want to be the one to have to tell you this, but you’re kinda gettin’ fat.” Todd was sitting on the bed across from Andrea, with his hands dangling in his lap. “I mean, I know there’s not really much to do down there, but the guys are kinda starting to talk. You know, Lydia does this new diet, the Paleo-diet, where it’s like, nothing except what cavemen ate…”

Andrea stared directly at him.

“Todd, listen, I didn’t really know about telling you this…” She was weighing out her pros and cons, but right now she had to make her move. “I’m not getting fat – I’m pregnant.”

There. There it was.

Todd looked at her with confusion and bewilderment. 

“What?” he asked.

“I mean, that’s what happens,” Andrea replied, starting to feel both humiliated and annoyed. She couldn’t have this conversation right now. She just wanted to go back to the grate, cuddle up with Jesse and… but she didn’t want to do that, either, because she couldn’t sleep in that grate. Her back was killing her already and if she had to lie on the ground one more day she was going to burst into tears and not be able to take it. “That’s what happens when you do the things that… that we’ve been doing. And you don’t, you know, use protection.” Why did she have to tell him these things? Was it that impossible for him to not be a complete idiot?

She felt another surge, another plea that this baby was Jesse’s. Otherwise, she would probably run herself into a wall right about now until she was bleeding. Maybe she wouldn’t even stop then. Maybe she would keep running into the wall until she was dead. She needed to get out of here.

“Okay,” Todd said. The look on his face was still blank, deathly blank, and Andrea wondered if he’d ever really felt anything in his life. Even if someone were to light a fire in his heart, would he feel it? Would it move him? If he lost the people in his life, his family – would he even care? Or would he just keep staring blankly as the world passed him by?

“Okay? That’s all you have to say about this?” Andrea’s voice was getting shrill, but she was starting not to care. This was maddening. She was cracking.  
How could she have considered for a second bringing a child into this? She’d have to throw herself down the grate or punch herself in the stomach or something equally horrible. Something that would be unfathomable in any other circumstances but seemed a mercy under these. How could she raise a child to look up into Todd’s dead eyes?

Her breath hitched. She wanted to cry. What was she going to do?

“That’s all I have to say about that,” Todd agreed. “But I’m excited. We have time to figure all of this out, Andrea. I mean, I’ll ask Uncle Jack for advice. We’ll get you anything you need. I’ll learn it all. I can find it out on the internet.”

“It doesn’t always go that way,” Andrea warned, putting her hands on her stomach. What was she going to do?

The answer was clear – she’d have to escape. Escape or die.


	16. Chapter 16

Walter White had escaped. He had escaped Albuquerque and with it, he had escaped all the consequences for his dastardly actions. That was one way of thinking about it – dastardly, like he was a villain who would twirl his moustache and was always kidnapping Little Nell. 

When he had been a young boy, his mother had always told him that if he did something wrong, he would pay for it.

“Maybe not today, maybe not next week even, but it will catch up with you eventually – so don’t.”  
He wondered what she was doing now, if she knew how much trouble her boy had gotten himself into. Maybe she always knew he would turn out this way, on the lam, hiding in this tiny town and reinventing himself into someone else. Maybe that was why sometimes he’d felt like her gaze was going over him, utterly disappointed, utterly rejected.

The woman had never gotten along with Skyler. Never approved of her, to be completely blunt about it. She’d referred to her as “that little blonde harpy” and had taken great glee in reminding Walter that she was a good twelve years younger than him, that she’d live longer than him and go marry somebody else.

“You should have married that nice girl, Gretchen. She was more your time, Walter. Why did you break up with her?”

Walter’s mother had loved fawning over Gretchen, calling her “That nice smart girl.”

Hadn’t that been nice. 

But it didn’t matter now, and it probably hadn’t even mattered then. He was on his own now, with his only family to speak of being this kid he’d adopted under some duress. Why did he feel so much better, then? Why did he feel free?

The slogan of the state was “Live Free or Die”, after all. Which one was he doing? Maybe he was doing both.

Brock, meanwhile, seemed to be steadily recovering, and beginning to fit in. The kid made friends, played marbles, joined soccer even though he wasn’t much good at it. That was something Walt could relate to from his own childhood. 

He didn’t mention Jesse and Andrea as much anymore, nor did he talk of home. He seemed to be accepting New Hampshire.

Walt was relieved by this – he didn’t want to have that conversation again, the one about how going to try and save Jesse would be a suicide mission. Walt wanted to believe that if it was possible, he would have done it, gone in guns blazing to save Jesse the way he knew Jesse would have done for him. He wanted to believe that he still had it in him to take the Heisenberg hat on and off at will. Maybe, however, maybe they were two different people. Maybe Heisenberg couldn’t exist in the same sphere as Walter White. That seemed to be catastrophizing, however – was he some sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character? Was he really such an awful human being for being willing to do what it took to help his family survive?

But where was his family? Who was his family now? Whatever he owed, did he owe it to Skyler, to Junior and Holly?

Or did he owe it to Jesse Pinkman?

***

Andrea kept her voice low, and her mouth close to Jesse’s ear. 

“We need to escape.”

Jesse shook his head wildly, afraid that they could hear him. They had to be able to hear them. They were so deep inside his head, it was as if they knew his every waking thought. They planned everything for him – he couldn’t do anything without them knowing, without them planning.

Then there was Andrea – his beautiful Andrea who had been drawn into this even though she’d had nothing to do with it, her only crime being that she knew him, that she loved him. Now her body wasn’t even her own. Because of them; no, because of him. 

“Jesse. You can’t be afraid forever. And it’s not just us now. We can’t just think about us. You think we can raise this baby down here? That’s how people die. People… women… I mean, they… we need medical care. I was in the hospital for a week after I gave birth to Brock. It’s… and you need it too. You need someone to look at all your bruises, and you don’t eat right…”

“I’m not important… If we run… If we run they’ll just hunt us down.”

“Not necessarily,” Andrea told him, her voice quick and gaining in intensity. “They’re a bunch of idiots. Once we get far enough away, they’re no match for us. We’re both smarter than them. We’re faster than them. Jesse!” Andrea grabbed his shackled hands in hers. “Jesse, we can do this, if we work together. But it’s got to be soon, Jesse. It has to be soon. If I get any farther along, if we wait… Then I’m not even going to be able to walk, let alone run… And I could go into labor later on. It has to be now.”

“But Andrea… I don’t think… you understand, just how serious they are.”

Andrea glared at him, but it was hard for her to stay mad. In this situation, how could she lash out at him? The close quarters were playing on her mind, however, making her yearn for even the crappy one-bedroom apartments she’d lived in, the house in the middle of a war zone she’d shared with her son. They were a step up from this grate or even the whole clubhouse. With Jesse’s skills in the lab, she wondered why they hadn’t bothered to make any sort of an upgrade in their standard of living, for everyone’s sake.

“And they don’t know how serious I am. You take a mother away from her son – and I’ll show you serious. Let’s start planning. They won’t even know what hit them. But if you’re going to lose your nerve, you’re not good to anybody. I need you in this, Jesse.” Jesse’s breath hitched. He was in this; he had to be. Somehow, though, he was sure he was making a mistake that was going to cost him everything that had ever mattered to him, in this life or the next.


	17. Climbing the Walls

“Lanita.” Walt was standing across from her, and he’d been pacing around her recliner for the last ten minutes. Her eyes were watching him go, but she hadn’t made a comment yet. “I need your advice on a situation. A hypothetical situation.”

“If you were one of my students, I would feel like a ‘there’s this friend who isn’t me’ moment was coming up,” she mused. “All right.” She put her hand down on the recliner, then cranked the lever to push herself back. She crossed her arms. “Let’s hear about this friend who isn’t you.”

“Well,” Walt said dryly, “Let’s say that this friend, who isn’t me, did something bad… let’s say it was a long time ago. And he left to get away from the consequences of the bad thing that he did. But there’s something that… he left unfinished. That he should have taken care of before he left, and now it might be too late, so he’s not sure whether it’s worth it to go back and… handle it, or whether to just wait for it all to be over.”

“Well, that sounds pretty… morbid, honestly,” Lanita began. “What do you mean by ‘all be over’?”

“It means that things aren’t good… for my friend, I mean. There’s not long left in his… plans.” Walt didn’t like talking about it, never had. It had been freeing, once upon a time, back when he could use his impending death to justify all the horrible things he had done, but now it was just sad. He felt more and more like an old man who was falling apart bit by bit.

“I see,” Lanita told him. “So your friend may want to get his house in order before he goes to meet the Good Lord… is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, that… sounds about right.” Walt fiddled with his collar and looked around the room. He was getting dangerously close to confessing it all – though even if he did, would she even believe him? Walter White, no, Heisenberg – was a legend – why would he be found in some weird little town in New Hampshire and not on a Caribbean island or wherever kingpins went to run from the Feds?

“Well, what happens to your friend if he goes back and has to face the trouble he’s caused? And what happens if he never does?”

Walt thought about it for a moment. He began to pace again. 

“Well, if he goes back… everything could fall apart. He could die. He could end up in… he could end up in prison. He could end up losing the life he’s built… somewhere else.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Walt closed his eyes. He knew the answer, as much as he didn’t want to say it, as much as he didn’t want to admit it

“If he never goes back, he’ll spend the rest of the time that he has wondering about what could have been. He won’t be able to appreciate anything he has because it will all fracture and fall apart… and turn to dust, before his eyes.”

***

“Are you ready?”

They’d all gone to bed, all of the bad men. All of the nightmares.

“Are you ready?” Andrea asked again. “You can’t wuss out on me now, Jesse Pinkman. Not when I need you. And I always need you.”

Jesse put his cuffed hands out in front of him. He still had reservations, but he couldn’t tell her now. That wouldn’t do any good; she wouldn’t listen. She was ready to escape, and he hoped he was, too.

Andrea fiddled with the paperclip. It had been easier than she had expected to sneak it out of Todd’s room, to slip it into her bra and bring it back to the grate. The harder part had been waiting, waiting and thinking that on any given day they might decide to do some kind of sweep, some sort of raid. That any excuse Andrea might come up with would be seen through and that whatever might come next would be too scary to even think about.

But they were all asleep. She’d seen it. 

Jesse’s cuffs fell to the floor, and Andrea winced. She was sure that somehow, up in the clubhouse, they had heard the clank of metal against stone, that they would come running now and catch them both. That they were somehow all-knowing and all-seeing. Andrea chided herself for that – they weren’t all-anything except for all-stupid. 

“Let’s go, Jesse. Lift me up.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t…” Jesse began, and Andrea wanted to slap him. He couldn’t, shouldn’t put doubts in her mind, not now. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. 

“Lift me up,” she said again. “Stack all this stuff up and lift me up, then I’ll pull you up too.” Without allowing him to get in much of an answer, she climbed up on to his hand and then on to his shoulder to see how far she would need to be. “Almost there.” She hopped back down and helped Jesse to stack up both buckets. 

“What if I drop you?” he asked, and she shook her head. There wasn’t time. She mentally thanked her one year of cheerleading experience back in freshman year as she climbed back into Jesse’s hands, then his shoulders. She used her free hand to shove open the heavy metal bars that lined the opening of the grate.

“Jesse,” she hissed. She extended her arms, trying to keep far enough back on the soil that she wouldn’t simply toss herself back into the grate head-first.

“Go without me,” he began, and she shook her head. 

“Grab my hands.”

She would find a way.

He grabbed her hands. She tried to haul him up. She could see a star in the distance as she heard him scrambling, feeling for footing against the dirt wall of the dismal grate.

She felt something press against her head.

“Now, Miss Andrea, you didn’t tell us you were thinking of going anywhere. We could’ve helped out and all.”


	18. Brand New Day

“I’m tired of waiting.” Brock was walking back and forth, gun in hand, and Walt was actually afraid of his own ten year old son – this was not something he had expected to happen. 

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Walt offered. He could see, rationally, where Brock was coming from – Walt was getting sicker and if Jesse and Andrea were alive, they probably weren’t getting any better in their situation. That didn’t mean Walt wanted to go along with this suicide mission, however.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t built by people sitting around on their ass doing nothing, either,” Brock shot back. Walt glared at him.

“Language!” he announced, before realizing he felt like a parody of himself. Who was he to tell this kid to watch his language? 

Brock, for his part, proceeded to roll his eyes and then to roll his shoulders.

The kid was starting to get tall and even a little bulky; was he really ten? Eleven? Whatever his current age was – Walt wasn’t even sure from day to day. He looked more like thirteen, fourteen. That still wasn’t old enough to do this.

“I haven’t seen her in almost a year,” Brock continued. “This isn’t okay. This isn’t what a man is supposed to do.”

Walt ogled at him. Where had he gotten all these chivalrous ideas? This image of riding in like a white knight and saving his mother, who was probably long since dead?  
…But what if she wasn’t? What if Jesse wasn’t? What if it wasn’t that Brock had ideas too big, but that Walt had closed himself off and given up on being a human?

“Brock, you’re too young.”

“Joan of Arc was thirteen,” he supplied. “I was reading.”

“And you’re not even that old! Plus, that was back when the life expectancy was something like thirty, if you were lucky. Brock, I’m not letting you go out there. There’s no ifs and ands and buts about it. Your mother wouldn’t want it, and Jesse wouldn’t want it, either.”

“Then why did you teach me to shoot? Why teach me if you were never going to let me use any of the stuff you had taught me?”

“I was trying to… appease you. To get you off my back, Brock.”

“Well, it didn’t work, Walt,” Brock spat, and Walt cringed. It was Jesse all over again – the only time he’d called him “Walt” was when he had been truly furious with him, when he had wanted to illustrate how hurt and cut open he was. Walt hadn’t listened – no, maybe he had listened but he had chosen never to really hear, not to take a moment and think through all of what Jesse had always tried to tell him. And now it was going to be too late, no matter what pipe dreams Brock had up his sleeve.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Brock told him, “And you can’t stop me. I’ll do whatever I have to do, to find her. To find them.”

“Yeah, and how do you plan on getting back to Albuquerque?” Walt snapped. He was starting to get fed up with this independent act. “You going to smash your piggy bank?”

“I’ll hitchhike,” Brock said matter-of-factly. “I’ll do what I need to do.”

“The cops will find you and stick you in some foster home. You’ll be living in a Lifetime drama. Is it really so bad here? Or are you just that spoiled?”

Brock snorted, and for a second it was like Jesse was right there in front of him, all over again.

“Watch me.”

***

Andrea had her eyes shut tight. Maybe if she shut them tight enough, this would be all over, and she would be back safe in her room at home, with Jesse beside her. She’d hear Brock playing down the hall, and she… she would…

It was getting harder to picture that reality, now. They’d been underground for… how many months had it been since their escape attempt? The only way she could really measure time was through changes in her body, small at first but ever so slightly growing each day.

She was finally out of the grate again, but she was lying on her back in the middle of the clubhouse… There was something beneath her – a pool table, maybe? It was hard and stiff, not soft like a bed. How long had it been since she had sat on a bed?

“You’re crowding her,” she heard a voice say, chastising but otherwise not full of much emotion.

“On the internet, they said to just keep everything clear, Uncle Jack, so I’m keeping it clear.”

“Goddamnit Toddy, you got directions on how to deliver a baby off Wikipedia?”

“Not Wikipedia, Uncle Jack – WikiHow.”

“Yeah, that’s much better.” Andrea felt someone tapping her face. “Stay with us.”

“Where am I?” she mumbled. “Where’s Jesse?” She needed Jesse. Something hurt, something was wrong. Everything was too hard on her back, all around her. Her arm was grazing something, rubbing against it, but she wasn’t sure what and she wished she knew where Jesse was.

“That’s not important right now.” A voice was speaking to her calmly. “You’re going to need to push if you want to be okay. You want to be okay, don’t you?”

Andrea knew she would never be okay, not after this. But if she had this baby, if this baby lived, then maybe… maybe there was hope. Hope seemed so far away, but hope meant getting Jesse to hold on, allowing herself to hold on. It meant that she could dream of finding Brock again, of holding him close to her and whispering that nothing would tear them apart from each other ever again. Hell, it meant believing against hope and after all this that Brock was still alive somewhere, waiting for her to come get him.

It meant reaching out for the impossible and grasping it, somehow.

She pushed.


	19. Best Laid Plans

Walt had made up his mind. 

It hadn’t been with the thunderous roar of some of his other decisions – he could still remember throwing the fulminated mercury at the ground of Tuco’s lair and watching his world erupt into flames, standing back and finding that it was good. Or making the decision to kill the ten men in prison and watching everything go down like clockwork, feeling like he had become God overnight. Relishing it.

That watch. The watch Jesse had given him.

This decision had come not from pride – at least not at first – but with the slow realization that if he did not take this action in his last days, he would be leaving Brock to do it for him. Maybe not today or tomorrow – he was a preteen boy, after all – but one day. 

And when Brock gave into that desire – that vengeance and blood-thirst, because by the time Brock would be old enough to seek revenge, Jesse would most certainly be dead and likely Andrea too (any other possibility would be only worse), and Brock would…

He would do what Walt would do. Or will do. Must do.

No, not Walt, not anymore. Lambert or White, it didn’t matter. This last time, he would have to be someone else – he would have to be Heisenberg all over again.

It wasn’t that he regretted having to put that hat on (literally) one last time; in a way, he relished it. But it was a relish that was tinged with an ill-fated nostalgia, a sense that he shouldn’t be doing this and if he must do it, he shouldn’t be enjoying it. Hadn’t he built a life here? Didn’t that count for anything?

Yet, the more he thought about it, the more his life here seemed like playing dress-up. Like he could put on the right outfit and smile the right smile and pretend to be Walter Lambert, but he was hollow inside. Hollow until he would be back in the right place, doing the right thing.

Even when the right thing was very much the wrong thing, at least in society’s eyes. That was funny, wasn’t it? The way that people would sit up on their high horses and tell him that murder was wrong – Skyler certainly had – but in this moment, he knew that leaving Jesse there for another day – if he was alive, please let him be alive – was wrong, too.

What felt right had to be right. He had to decide for himself; he needed to awaken, one more time. 

He walked up the stairs and rapped on Brock’s door. If he was going to move, he would need to move fast, and leave no time for hesitation or second-guessing – if he had second-guessed things, he wouldn’t be here in the first place, living and breathing – he would be dead in a ditch somewhere with Tuco or someone standing overhead.

The door opened, and Brock stuck his head out.

“What’s going on, Uncle Walter?”

The kid’s voice sounded quiet and tired, like he was an old man ready to go to bed after a particularly long day, rather than a child who should be in the prime of his life.  
Walt hoped that he would understand why he was about to do what he was going to do.

“Get your stuff. I need to drop you at Lanita’s for a little bit,” Walt instructed.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Don’t question me, Brock! Just get whatever you need for a few nights’ sleepover.”

When Brock had packed, the two made their way over to Lanita’s house. Walt rapped on the door and when it opened, he stepped inside without asking if he could come in.

There was a sense of urgency and even if he had felt something… even if he had thought he felt something, now wasn’t the time. There wasn’t time for regrets and there wasn’t time to decide that he needed to love someone else on his last day on Earth. He only needed her to play her part in this final act.

“Lanita… Something is going on, something very serious,” he blurted as he ushered Brock inside. “I need you to watch Brock for a while so I can go back to Albuquerque and handle some business.”

She stared at him.

“What kind of business, exactly?”

“Business I can’t bring a kid into,” Walt snapped back. “If you care for me at all, then you’ll do this for me. Will you, Lanita? Will you please do this for me?” He hated how desperate he sounded at the very end. 

“I will. Brock, go upstairs and pick out your room. I’ll talk to your uncle.”

Brock, with obvious reluctance, made his way up the steps.

Lanita stared at Walt and slowly sighed.

“I guess this is it,” she told him.

“I guess it is,” Walt replied.

“We could have had something great, you know.” Lanita reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.

“We could have,” Walt agreed, “But I don’t have a lot of time left. And this… this has waited for far too long. Now it might be… it might be too late.”

“But it might not.” Lanita moved her hand and a small smile crept on her face. “It was nice to know you, Walter White.”

“You…”

“I’ve known since the first month we met. I’m not an idiot. Do what you need to do – I’ll look after Brock.”

***

Walt had driven about two miles when he reached up to tilt the mirror back.

He sighed.

“Well, Brock. You might as well come up front. It’s a long drive to Albuquerque if you’re going to hide the entire time.”

A tiny – well, not so tiny, not anymore at least – pair of eyes appeared in the mirror. 

“How’d you figure out I was here?” the boy inquired.

“I know you well enough by now. How’d you give Lanita the slip?”

Brock shrugged.

“I climbed out the window.”

He lifted up a rifle.

“I see we have firepower. What’s the plan?”

“I’ll let you know when we get there.”


	20. The New Normal

Andrea rubbed at her eyes. There was something in them, something trapped just beneath the eyelid. It drove her crazy, and she’d pictured just ripping off her eyelid or her entire head and just jumping out a window sometimes.

That was the way being here made her feel. Escape was no longer an option, now that they had their ace in the whole, their trump card, their ransom – her baby.   
They rarely saw him. He was a tiny little thing, so innocent, with big blue eyes that held no knowledge of the evil place he had been born into and conceived in.  
Andrea ached for him. She wailed for him.

What had she done so wrong in her life to be separated from both her sons? If only she knew, at least, that Brock was alive, that he was maybe even thriving somewhere – that someone was tucking him in at night and reading him stories and playing catch with him. Then she could at least keep her head up.

Jesse tried to talk to her sometimes, to try and keep her calm, but she knew that he felt just as hopeless as she did or even more-so. Sometimes he told her that it was all his fault, but she had long since refused to listen to it – what could he have even done to rain this down upon the two of them? And even if it was his fault, what did it matter now? What good did blaming do? Did blaming give her back her sons, her life, her own body? No.

But planning did not come to any good, either.

Sometimes she argued with Jesse, too. Started a fight over some little thing in the lab or some little thing about him, finding where he snored too loudly or was too close to her. But it was hard to continually fight with a broken man, even when broken herself. 

There was no point in making him suffer. They had far enough of it to go around; hell, they had it in spades. As far as Andrea could see, this was their life now. 

At least Todd had, recently, left her alone. After her escape, she guessed that whatever magic he had been deluding himself into thinking existed between the two of them had been shown to be false. Part of her was glad of it – she hadn’t wanted that man’s hands on her in the first place and wasn’t going to be missing them – but part of the wool had been pulled from over her eyes, as well. All of the stories she had been told as a little girl about princesses locked up in towers because evil sorcerers desired them – there had been a magic to that idea.

Now it was gone and all that was left was the pit, was the grate, was the dirt and the grime that she was sure would never run clean even if she scrubbed for years and years.  
And she had tried, in a way, over these weeks and days. She was sure that she had cried herself nearly to death.

But she had to live, she reminded herself in the moments when she knew who she was, those flashes of realization – she had to live for Jesse and Brock and for the baby.

For she simply thought of her younger son as “the baby”, rejecting the name Todd had given him – Baby Jack – but not daring to come up with one of her own lest they steal that as well somehow. 

She tried to remember the way that she had come up with Brock’s name, the way she had decided something that would affect him the rest of his life, for better or worse, and she came up sort. She could no longer remember what life had been like outside of this place.

She turned to Jesse and looked at him, sadly. 

“Are you awake?” she asked him.

He rolled over and looked at her, as if trying to get his bearings.

“Yeah, I’m up. Hey, Andrea.” His voice was soft, and it seemed so much raspier since he had gotten here. Too much screaming and crying, she assumed, or maybe he didn’t have a chance to use it as much. Recently, they tended to work in silence – there wasn’t much reason to talk as they worked in the lab together, creating the poison that would keep them alive.

She could probably cook just as well as Jesse now. What a thing to realize – she was in it just as deep now.

“We have some time before,” she said softly. Before they would come and start up the whole horrible endless day. She needed to make these moments count, because they were the only ones left that still did. She leaned in and pressed a sad kiss to Jesse’s forehead.

She was beginning to forget what the man she loved looked like when he wasn’t trapped in chains. She was beginning to forget what she had looked like before being trapped in this grate.

They were two human beings, hovering in space but never floating down quite to Earth. Not these days, at least.

So why didn’t she end it all, then? She asked herself that question sometimes. Why didn’t she and Jesse go the same route as Romeo and Juliet and just leave it all behind, hope that one day someone would find the baby and that someone had already found Brock? 

She couldn’t leave them, though. 

And she couldn’t leave Jesse. Some part of her knew that even if she left, some part of him would make him still live in this world. She wouldn’t allow him to do it alone. 

Jesse could never survive alone.

“What did you want to do, until we have to…?” Jesse began. He was so quiet. She missed when Jesse would shout and laugh and complain about things. That had been a different Jesse, and she didn’t know whether maybe, maybe she had loved him more. 

He was dead, now.

She was trying to think of how to respond when they heard the fire burst in from above.


	21. Lily of the Valley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be the last chapter, but it got really long - so the next one will probably be last. Thank you for reading! :)

“Stay behind me, Brock,” Walt suggested, and part of him couldn’t believe it. How had he fallen so low that he was taking a pre-teen in to war with him? 

Then again, it wasn’t as if he would live through the day to dwell on it. 

Walt’s heart was beating so fast that he was sure everyone inside the compound could hear it. And so fucking what – let them hear it.

Let them hear him coming to rain hellfire down on them and to take back what was his, now and forever.

(If Jesse and Andrea were still alive, and here, that was – but that was a thought only for a second. Because some part of Walt always had to know, some part of Walt always had to be connected to Jesse forever.)

Walt pressed the shotgun against the door. He wondered where they must be that they weren’t guarding the place. Maybe they were just waiting; maybe that was their plan.

Maybe it was all too easy on purpose. Then again, seeing a man with cancer (who they might not even recognize) and a boy, maybe they didn’t think they needed to bring out the big guns.

They were wrong.

Walt began to pump the shotgun, knowing that he was never going to look back.

***

“What’s going on?” Andrea whispered, panicked, clinging to and behind Jesse. 

“I don’t know… Try and stay down,” Jesse counseled, “Maybe they got somebody mad?”

Jesse couldn’t help but wonder if, maybe, this was the end. Maybe it had come for them at last – if some rival gang was coming after Jack’s crew, Jesse and Andrea would most likely be laid to waste with the rest of them.

Jesse was worried when he didn’t feel frightened at that thought, but rather relieved. They could sleep at last.

That was ripped away by another thought – Andrea! He could bargain away his own life and float away on despair, but not Andrea’s…

“I won’t let them…” Jesse began, but he was not sure what he wouldn’t let them do – what he could actually prevent. He was chained up, after all, and helpless. He had been helpless against Jack and the rest, so what power could he think he currently had?

He bit his lip, hard. At least he wouldn’t cry, not now – he wouldn’t let them have that, not at the end.

He heard the song of shots being fired, and he heard a yell. Curses, fury. 

He squinched his eyes shut. Not now, not now. Please, not them.

And then he felt someone grab his shoulder.

“Jesse!”

Jesse looked up, and he wondered if this was death, having come for him at last. Maybe he would greet him with a smile. 

***

Walter White had never been in a gun fight, not like this one. He had always had the upper hand, never been dying from the inside out and trying to protect someone so much smaller.

He thought he was going to die, but he felt no fear, not really.

Jesse’s not here, he told himself as he pulled the trigger again and again, watching bullets fly back towards him – not quite, and there was a gleeful anger in it, try again, asshole, I’m going to laugh at you, I’m going to keep walking, because I’m not going to die for you.

Suddenly he felt a tiny hand grabbing at his arm – Brock was here, it wasn’t just him, he had to protect Brock. That was the goal, here, besides everything else. Had Brock shot anyone yet? Walt couldn’t really tell – he’d been too caught up in riding high the sounds of the shells colliding with flesh, of his enemies. It was like the showdown of a Clint Eastwood movie. 

Part of Walt wished he could feel bad, but it all felt like a dream.

“I saw something outside. Like, a… manhole cover. Do… maybe someone’s down there,” Brock said in a quick, breathless yell. “Let’s go.”

Before Walt could reply, to tell him to wait, Brock took off running towards the door. Bodies were scattered all around. That couldn’t be the last of them, Walt knew. There were more of them – otherwise how could they have pulled off his prison scheme? 

He ran after Brock, trying to keep an eye to the left and right of him. He was going to give up hope, soon. Jesse and Andrea were probably long gone. Maybe this hadn’t been about them, but about him all along. 

“Brock, slow down!” he yelled, but the child was smaller, faster, and not weighed down by a terminal illness, so Walt found himself dragging behind.

“Help me with this tarp.”

Walt would have bristled at being ordered – wasn’t he the one who had taught this kid everything he knew, even when he hadn’t wanted to? Even when he’d had to be forced into it? – but there just wasn’t time. Walt pulled one side of the tarp, and Brock the next.  
They pulled.

It was a long way down. 

“After you, Uncle Walter.”

***

Now, Walt found himself staring straight into Jesse’s eyes, and Jesse found himself staring back.

It had been a long time since they had seen one another.

They were stuck in a sort of suspended animation, blue eyes into blue, until Andrea spoke up and, in a hushed whisper, said, “Brock!”

“Mom…” Brock slowly walked towards her, his eyes looking dazed, as if she wasn’t real but just an image his mind had conjured up. Her arms were out-stretched, but he didn’t seem to know what to do about them.

“We should get out of here… How do I undo these?” Walt inquired, gesturing to Jesse’s chains. 

“Todd has the key, I think.” Jesse couldn’t take his eyes off of the other man. It was like he was a mirage, but a nightmare mirage. Mr. White had brought evil far more than he had brought good. But now, did he bring salvation? Or was this something else all in Jesse’s head? 

Now, Jesse turned his head and let out a gasp.

“Brock?” he whispered, relief mixing with fury, “You brought Brock here? To this place? What the…”

He was cut off by the sound of Brock slowly moving into Andrea’s arms for only a second, before giving them a little tap.

“We need to go back and get the key,” Brock said to Walt, deadly serious and unconcerned. 

“I’ll go with you,” Andrea said quickly, rising from her spot.

“No!” Jesse’s voice came in a strangled yelp. Let Andrea go up there? Let Brock go up there? This was all madness, this was all…

“I’m going to get the key and come back and free you, Jesse. We’re getting out! We’re free.”

She didn’t look at him as she took her spot by Brock and Walt’s side. 

“We’re coming back for you, Jesse. I promise, okay?” she smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “Just stay down.”

“Brock should stay with me!” Jesse argued, “Down here – at least the grate is pretty protected, it’s…”

“I’m not a kid anymore, Jesse. I’m going to fight.”

And with that, Brock Cantillo made his way back up the grate, calmly grabbing the ladder before climbing out.

***

Brock reached up, watching the keys glimmer against the ceiling light. He had just retrieved them from the pocket of one Todd Alquist, no longer amongst the living.   
He didn’t feel much of anything – not yet, at least. It was like watching a movie or playing a video game, except these people were real.

At least, maybe they were. They seemed otherworldly, in a way.

That wasn’t important now. What was important was to follow Uncle Walter – he was here somewhere; where had he gotten to? – and to go back and free Jesse.

Jesse seemed different, but that was okay. Sometimes, people changed. Brock had changed, and that was okay.

After another moment looking for Walt, he checked for any further men and then started off towards the grate. Hopefully, Walter was getting the rest of them. 

Where was Brock’s mother in all of this?

She must have turned a corner and run to do something… He couldn’t lose her, not again, but he had to free Jesse first. Once they were both able to fight, this would be so much easier.

***

Jesse wanted to pull his hair out of his head – all of it, from the overgrown mop on his head to the beard that had grown unchecked during his time in this prison. 

How could he sit there while they were risking their lives for him?

Even Mr. White. But… Brock? He still couldn’t understand why Brock was here, and why he seemed so distant, so different.

Maybe Mr. White had make him like him. But how had Mr. White gotten a hold of Brock in the first place?

There were too many questions, and Jesse wasn’t sure he would ever be able to answer them. He might die first, or they might.

“Got you!” Brock’s voice came echoing into the grate, followed by the sound of the boy throwing himself down into the place. Jesse winced. 

Didn’t that hurt?

Then again, Jesse had jumped off of houses once upon a time, once when he was fearless. 

The next thing he heard was the sound of the cuffs unlocking. 

He burned and ached as he shook his limbs free. There was no time to wait. He had to run; they all needed to run.

He felt like he was in one of those counting videos he had seen as a child. I’m Jesse and I am one, Andrea is two, Brock three and Mr. White…

***

“Get out of here, keep running,” Walt said, giving Andrea a shove. There was a car in the compound with the keys still inside; these men weren’t known for being big thinkers or big planners. 

“I can’t!” 

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Walt almost wanted to stop running, just so he could slap her for saying something like that at a time like this. What, was she a damsel in distress from some horror movie, ready to break a heel?

“The baby!” Andrea screamed back in his face, like he was supposed to know what that meant.

“What baby?”

Jesse turned and stared at Walter with red-rimmed, shattered eyes. 

“Andrea’s baby. Todd, he…”

“Seriously?” Walt yelled at her, “Leave it! You really want to go back for Todd’s kid?”

“My baby! Not fucking Todd’s baby!” Andrea screamed in Walt’s face before shoving him aside. “I’m going back for him!”

“Mom, wait!”

Everyone turned to look as Brock spoke.

“I’m going in.”


	22. This Is the End

“You can’t do this, Brock.” Walt reached out and grabbed his hand, trying to pull him back. “That kid isn’t anything to you. Not worth risking your life over. Your mother’s gonna trade you out for him?”

“Uncle Walt? Shut up,” Brock snapped, turning his head before looking back at the man who had raised him for the past year. “I love you, and I’ll be back. Keep my mom and Jesse safe.”

With that, he turned and rushed back into the house.

He knew he was young, and smaller than all the men he would be fighting in there.  
But the baby? The baby his mom was sobbing about was smaller still, innocent and vulnerable. What was he training for if not to use all of this, to use it to save the people who had no chance on their own?

The clubhouse looked like something out of a horror movie in the dim lighting. There were couches on either side of the room and a huge pool table in the middle. It was a set-up clearly done by a bunch of men pointing randomly at some catalog or some yard sale.

Brock narrowed his eyes. Where would they keep a baby in this mess? Where should he look?

It wasn’t as if he had a lot of experience, but he strained to remember birthday parties when he’d been younger, and some of the kids in Franconia. Poor kids with cluttered, dirty house, and richer kids with big yards that filled with snow year-round.

They usually put the kid in the family room if they were the kind of people who would crowd around a baby and coo over it and that kind of thing. But for people who had other priorities – smoking meth, maybe, or being Nazis – they would put them in an upstairs room.

That’s where he would find him.

That was where he would find his little brother.

***

“You let him go in there!” Walt yelled at them both. “You’re idiots!” 

“I didn’t see you stopping him!” Jesse railed back at him. “What are you even doing here? You left me there to die for months – you left us there and you didn’t do anything at all and you had Brock, you had…” He ran at his mentor, punching weakly at his chest, crying but unable to get the tears to come out of his eyes and down his face. “Brock is alive…. You saved Brock…”

Walt shook his head.

“He’s been fine… I took him with me to New Hampshire… He’s a good kid. A strong kid… He’ll…” Walt paused, about to say something like “he’ll do okay in there.” But why should he do okay in there, alone?

Walter shouldn’t have let him run in. He should have protected this boy who was now his, more than the two children he had forgotten the faces of, more than the family that had become a blur he only saw in dreams.

But what was he supposed to do now? He’d come back and he’d gotten Jesse safe – he’d taken out a few of them and punished them. Wasn’t he done? Wasn’t this his swan song and he could go ride back to New Hampshire and live his quiet life again until it was meant to be over?

He couldn’t do anything if Brock wasn’t safe.

“Stay here. Don’t act like idiots,” he grumbled at Jesse, before marching into the house. He wasn’t going to look back; he never should have in the first place.

***

Brock yanked open the last door, the one he would have thought was a bathroom if he hadn’t found it as part of some master bedroom set-up. He was starting to feel faint and flushed; the panic was rising within him. What if he didn’t come through? What if this was really the end? He was a very young age to die… 

He wasn’t going to think about that now, though. He was going to find him.

He realized, as he pushed a door open slowly, that he didn’t even know this kid’s name. 

He’d have to give him one, maybe. These guys had probably named him something stupid or rude, like those people in the news who had named their kid Adolph Hitler. What was wrong with people, Brock wondered. 

There was no one in the room – no one except a tiny baby in a half-collapsed playpen. 

Brock looked around, as he had been taught (now would not be the time to forget a single lesson) before sticking the gun in his pocket and lunging to pick up the baby.

The little guy was lighter than Brock would have figured, and he was sleeping. Brock wondered how in the world anyone could sleep in a place like this. 

He hoisted him on to his shoulder (though something about it didn’t seem quite right) and headed for the staircase. He’d have to get out quick. 

Suddenly, he thought of fire drills at his great-grandmother’s house, and how he’d laughed about them sometimes.

“Who would have time to remember to stop, drop and roll? I’d just run,” he had said with a giggle, and his great-grandmother had yelled at him in Spanish for what seemed like an hour.

He wondered where she was now. He hadn’t thought about her before he had run off with Walter; he had only thought about getting his mother and Jesse back. If he got out of this alive, he would apologize to her, he would be kind to her. 

That was when he felt a gun pressed up against his temple. 

Brock swallowed hard. 

“Look, it’s the little brat.” The voice was raspy and bristled and rusted. It was the voice of a man Brock would have run away from if he had approached him on the playground. “I never thought I would see you. But… extra added bonus, I guess.” He chuckled, and it sounded like the world was shaking. 

“Uncle Jack!” called another voice. “What are you doing? Where’s…”

Brock’s eyes opened wide as he looked – tried to look – between the two.

How was he going to get out of this one? Snap his shoes together and say that there was no place like home? 

Maybe he wasn’t going to get out of this one; perhaps that was the lesson in all of this. Bad Brock, bad… He was going to get it…

BANG!

Brock clasped his hands over his ears reflexively before it hit him – if he’d just been shot, the noise was the last thing he had to worry about.

It was seconds later that he realized nothing was hurting. When you got shot, wasn’t it supposed to hurt?

Brock shut his eyes a moment, then opened them to see that both men had fallen in front of him. 

“Let’s get out of here.”

Walt didn’t need to tell him twice.

The older man shot off like a cat running after a mouse, jolting down the stairs and out the door, checking only to make sure that Brock was following behind.

And he was. The baby was held against his chest, firmly pressed there – hopefully not too tightly, Brock worried. 

He could hear more gunshots, though whose side they were on he couldn’t quite tell.

He could only run.

As he heard the door slam behind him, he suddenly smelled smoke.

The compound was burning. 

***

“What are we going to do now?” Brock asked. 

They were walking down the road. Brock and Andrea were hand-in-hand, and Jesse carried the tiny baby.

Brock, after hearing the whole story, had decided that they should name him Drew. 

Walter was coughing, and he had told them he would stop off at a motel along the way.

“People are looking for me. Let them find me. I don’t have long.”

But maybe he would go back to New Hampshire. There was always that chance. Maybe he still had someone waiting.

“I want to shower for the rest of my life,” Andrea mumbled under her breath to Jesse. 

He didn’t talk, much. He probably wouldn’t for a long time.

But they were all together. And where there was life, there would always be hope.


End file.
